


The Pickle Jar Experiment

by thundermoo



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 19:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundermoo/pseuds/thundermoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheldon wants to one day take his relationship with Amy to a physical level but doesn't know where to begin. He seeks advice from the only sexpert he knows: Penny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pickle Jar Experiment

It’s 10:59 am on a Saturday, the first Saturday Penny has had off from the Cheesecake Factory in almost two months. Ordinarily she would still be in bed, nursing the hangover from the night before, but she can hear Sheldon Cooper, the more than quirky theoretical physicist who rents the apartment across the hall. She used to say he was crazy but every time she did she got the same defensive reaction- arms folded across his chest, slightly hunched forward and the voice, enough octaves higher it would definitely be considered whining in a reminder that he isn’t crazy, his mother had him tested.

Usually one would wonder why they could hear their neighbor breathing outside their door but this is something Penny has become accustomed to. She once threatened to kill him if he knocked on her door before 11 so if he was impatient, as he was known to be, he was likely counting down the seconds until 11 am.

As expected, by the time she managed to throw on the Tinkerbell pajama pants she found in a pile near her closet and walk towards the living room, she hears the tell tale three knocks and then “Penny”, followed by another three knocks and then “Penny” and a third set of three knocks, again followed by “Penny”. 

She was curious once, what would happen if she didn’t answer the door after his slightly OCD routine. After about five minutes she assumed he left but when she opened the door two hours later to go to work, she found him sitting next to her door patiently playing Pokémon on his Nintendo. As much as it creeped her out, she felt equally bad for leaving him out there all that time. After that, she usually just answered the door.

So as she has resigned herself to doing, she opens the door, only part of the way at first to make sure he isn’t going to do anything like set her hair on fire again or make her babysit a nicotine addicted monkey again or try to convince her to harbor a stolen 200 pound particle collider in her bathtub until Cal-Tech security, the Pasadena Police department and the FBI had completely searched his apartment…again.

This time she’s even more concerned. He’s standing relatively still, rigid even, but his eyes aren’t focused on her, they keep wandering around as though he’s trying to decide whether he likes the color of Penny’s walls. She knows he doesn’t, he’s told her more than once that lime green is an acceptable color for limes, jello, and glow in the dark legos, and that walls are none of those things.

She looks into his eyes with a slight glare, her typical morning “What do you want?” Sheldon, as usual, fails to pick up on her body language and continues looking around, this time studying what seem to be his shoelaces. Penny sighs in slight frustration, her headache telling her it’s to early to deal with whatever insanity is soon to follow. She shifts her body weight to her left leg, places her right hand on her hip and tilts her head to the side.

She sighs again, more defeat and less frustration. “Sheldon,” says curtly and his eyes automatically shift up to meet hers.

“Penny,” he replies simply, keeping his gaze on her, but not looking like he’s going to say anything else.

Penny actually groans this time but turns back into her apartment and sits on her couch. The open door is for once understood as an invitation and Sheldon takes a step inside, shuts the door and locks it. He tests all three locks, individually and then together. He unlocks all of them and does it again, first checking the lock on the doorknob, then the deadbolt, then the chain lock and all three together. Seemingly satisfied, he repeats the motion once more, closing all the locks at once, pulls, and when the door fails to open he turns away from it.

He’s still standing next to the door when he looks over at Penny. She’s been watching him, saying nothing, and he starts to wonder why he came to her in the first place. Intending to tell her to forget his impromptu visit, apologize for his intrusion and then head back to his apartment, all that comes out of his mouth is “Penny.”

At this, Sheldon falls apart. He slumps down onto his butt, back against the door and puts his head in his hands. He’s not crying but thinks he would be if he knew how.

Before he even knows what’s happening, Penny’s on her knees beside him, arms wrapped around his torso and one had rubbing through his hair. When she tilts his chin up to look at her and poses the question, “sweetie what’s wrong?” he sees genuine concern in her eyes.

Sheldon looks up at her and says, in all seriousness, “I feel like Mal Reynolds. He was the best captain in the fleet,” and he looked up at Penny as though he expected her to follow his train of thought, “just like I’m the best theoretical physicist, at least in the country; he even fought against the tyranny of the Alliance just as I fight the outrage of the content appropriated by the syfy channel, but he couldn’t even figure out how to show the woman who loved him that he was also in love with her.”

Penny releases him and takes a step back. “What?” She asks, rubbing her temples as her headache grows. She holds up her index finger. “Who is Mal Reynolds?” She holds up another finger and asks “the Alliance? Are we talking about Star Wars…Trek…Star Something?” She finally holds up a third finger and pauses as she cocks her head to the side. “Are we talking about you and Amy?”

She keeps the incredulous look aimed at Sheldon and as he gazes to the ceiling Penny can almost hear the gears turning in his head. After a short few moments he looks back at her. “The Captain of Serenity. No. Yes,” and he falters for a second. “At least I think so.”

Already used to this from Leonard, Penny deftly ignores the science fiction part of the story and gets to what she is starting to see as the point. “You and Amy?”

“Yes,” Sheldon replies simply. “Amy and I have been ‘in a relationship’ for two years, one month and twelve days, according to her facebook page.”

The picture is starting to come together for Penny, or so she believes. “And you feel that you don’t know how to show her that you love her?” And at this point, the conversation goes down a road Penny never imagined visiting.

 

 

“The most important question is…” and she pauses as she sits in the far corner of the couch and pulls her feet up toward her chest, “do you love her?”

“Great,” Sheldon remarks sarcastically, “let’s start with the easy questions.” He paces around a bit and Penny says nothing, waiting for him to get his bearings. Sheldon sits on ‘his’ end of the couch, crosses his legs, shifts a bit and stands back up. He paces a bit more and sits hesitantly on the armrest.

“This won’t do at all,” he proclaims before getting back up almost as soon as his butt touches the cushion. He moves to the chair on the other side of the room, wiggles around and rests his arms, apparently finding an acceptable seat. He remains in his chair but starts to look around the apartment again, giving Penny the impression it’s her turn to restart the conversation.

“Sheldon,” she begins, “do you love Amy?”

He looks down at his lap and then begins to pick at his fingernails. “I believe so,” he states, still not looking up.

“Okay,” Penny says, “why do you ‘believe so’? Also, why aren’t you having this conversation with Leonard? Or Raj or Howard?”

Sheldon chuckles. “Leonard, Raj, and Walowitz don’t understand the complexity of one as intelligent as myself attempting to form a familial bond with an almost equally intelligent woman.”

As Penny gets a dirty look on her face, Sheldon quickly follows up with “no offense Penny.” She figures that’s the best she’s going to get from Sheldon so she lets it slide.

“So that answers one question. Now why do you ‘believe’ you love Amy? Usually a person is or isn’t in love with someone. What makes you sure and what makes you question it?”

“Well,” Sheldon starts, “I would one day like to create a Sheldon 2.0 to carry my genes, my legacy, and naturally, my intelligence. Amy Farrah Fowler is the only logical choice to donate genetic material to my offspring…except perhaps Leonard’s mother, but when I asked him about it he stopped talking to me for a week. He even left his cereal bowl in the sink for two hours one of those days, so that’s not an option.”

Penny sits there stunned for a moment, opens her mouth a bit, and eventually a simple “wow” squeaks out before she is able to collect herself. 

Before she is able to say much more, Sheldon continues. “Amy is also the only female with whom I am able to discuss my work with and actually receive a relatively educated and informed response.”

Penny takes this as his way of saying he enjoys spending time with her. “Okay, Sheldon, since she’s the perfect woman for you, what’s the problem?”

“I didn’t say she was perfect, I said she was the only logical choice. There is a difference.”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Again, what is the problem?”

Sheldon sighs. “As I understand it, social protocols for relationships indicate that I should sometimes be willing to make sacrifices in order to make my partner happy and give her a sense of security in that I am aware of and care about her needs.”

Exasperated, Penny rubs her face and slaps her hands down on her knees. “Yes, Sheldon, a woman will expect you to let her know you care about her, that she’s not wasting her time. If you do and you are willing to do something about it, again, what the hell is your problem?”

“She would like to engage in coitus,” he blurts out quickly, as though the words might burn him.

“Umm…first of all, I thought we agreed you don’t get to say ‘coitus’. Sex, Sheldon, can you say sex?”

He looks at Penny as though she has two heads. “I can,” he tells her, “but I would rather not.” Sheldon thinks his comment is witty and resolute but the look on her face suggests he try again.

“Fine,” Sheldon says, huffing a bit, “sex. There, I said it.”

Penny smiles, genuinely entertained for the first time in this train-wreck of a conversation. “Good. That wasn’t so hard. Now do you want to have sex with Amy?”

He seems pensive, but Penny’s not sure if he’s actually considering it or if he just has gas.

“I suppose,” he says finally. “I would like to create offspring with her.”

“Oh my god, Sheldon, that’s not the point. Does she turn you on? Do you want to turn her on? You do know what sex is, right?”

“Of course I know what sex is,” he starts, “it’s when two or more people stimulate each other’s…”

“Sheldon stop!” Penny exclaims, jumping from her seat and covering her ears. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” she mumbles to herself. “Why is this happening to me?”

 

 

“If I’m making you uncomfortable Penny, we don’t have to have this conversation. I just don’t know anyone else to talk to about it. You’re the expert here.”

Penny ignores the part where Sheldon essentially called her a slut, she’s used to hearing it from him. “Look, sweetie, you’re my friend. I’ll give you whatever advice I can but you have to be receptive and stop avoiding the questions that will lead you to the answer you’re looking for.”

Sheldon smiles. “If you changed the semantics you’d almost sound like Yoda. Answer your questions I will.” He giggles then pauses for a moment. “What were the questions?”

As much as she feels like banging her already throbbing head into a wall, she knows this is just who Sheldon is. He can’t help it. What she can do, though, is make herself a second cup of coffee, which she does as she continues this morning’s downward spiral.

“Let’s start easy. Are you attracted to her?”

This time Sheldon rolls his eyes. “I take her on a date every 5th Thursday of each month with five Thursdays, I listen to her drone on about her work as though neuroscience and drug addicted monkeys were interesting, and I already told you. I want her genetic material fused with mine in the creation of another human being. What could possibly make you think I’m not attracted to her?” Sheldon takes a quick pause to breathe. “I’m starting to wonder if I would have had more luck talking to the monkey.”

Penny’s face screws up in this cute, offended but coy way that pretty girls often do. “Hey!” she exclaims half-heartedly and slaps him in the back of his head.

“Fine,” Sheldon huffs, “yes, I am attracted to her.”

Penny squeals and claps and moves in what appears to be a very short representation of the Snoopy dance.

“Great,” she says a big smile on her face. “Now does she turn you on?”

“Honestly?” Sheldon asks, vulnerable in a way Penny had never seen him before, even when she’s had to sing him ‘Soft Kitty’. 

She tones her excitement down and gives him her full attention, really trying to be a true friend, something she hadn’t really considered until she met Sheldon and Leonard. “Honestly.”

 

 

“I don’t know,” he says simply. “I’ve never had sexual experiences or thoughts before. I was always completely focused on my work. And sometimes science fiction. And comic books. And video games. But I never really thought of women before. I always assumed I was above the call of the primate instincts that tell people to mate.

“Okay, well,” begins Penny, who is starting to feel like she’s about to have ‘the talk’ with an adolescent boy. “It feels good when you touch yourself, right? It also feels good when someone else does it for you. Are you interested in having Amy be that someone else?”

Penny assumes this is as basic as you can get when talking about sex but the response she receives from Sheldon tells her otherwise. “I don’t know if it feels good to touch myself. I mean I touch it when I urinate and I clean myself when I take baths but I’ve never considered playing with it as though it’s a recreational activity.”

Penny’s eyes widen and her jaw drops. “You’ve never masturbated? Like, ever?”

Sheldon thinks for a moment. “I tried once,” he says, a bit embarrassed, “it didn’t feel bad but it wasn’t like finding the Holy Grail like other guys make it out to be. Also, I don’t believe I achieved orgasm.”

Penny shutters, a bit disturbed at the thought of Sheldon fumbling through a failed masturbation attempt, but also, for some reason, a bit turned on. She pushes the thought to the back of her mind as an idea emerges.

“This should be an easy fix with you and Amy. Go home, learn to choke your chicken and when you get good at it, it can be an experience you can and Amy can share together.” She stops for a second. “Wow that was the weirdest sentence that has ever left my mouth. I’m going to go bleach my brain now,” she finishes, walking to the door and opening it for her neighbor.

He didn’t move. “Now,” she said simply, motioning out the door with her arms.

“But I don’t know how. I just told you that.”

Penny groans in frustration. “Go home. Touch it where it feels good. Keep doing it. You’ll figure it out. Now. Go. Home.”

 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

 

‘Home,’ Penny thinks, leaning her head back and letting out a sigh of relief. She had a 13 hour shift at the Cheesecake Factory and a hard time believing two waitresses had babies and the busboy’s grandma died all on the same day, but what can she do? The acting jobs just aren’t coming in fast enough to keep up with the cost of living in Los Angeles.

She gets out of her car, which is parked in a handicapped spot that she’s hoping no one will see, and takes her hair out of her ponytail. She runs her fingers through a tangle, grimaces and smells her finger. ‘Barbeque sauce…or sriracha?’ she thinks, willing herself to just appear on her couch, freshly showered with a glass of wine in one hand instead of still being disgusting and having to trek up three flights of stairs.

As soon as she shuts her front door behind her Penny kicks off her shoes and slips off her shirt. She goes into her bedroom and opens her dresser, looking for clean underwear and a big soft t-shirt to put on after the shower she can already envision.

‘Knock, knock, knock,’ “Penny.”

“Fuck!” she actually says out loud, flinching at the unwanted intrusion.

‘Knock, knock, knock,’ “Penny.” ‘Knock, knock, knock,’ “Penny.” There is a slight pause before Sheldon launches into his usual tirade. “I know you’re in there, I saw you park in that handicapped space. You’re going to get a ticket. They’re going to tow your…”

Penny’s face in front of Sheldon instead of the door stops him mid-sentence. He looks at her for a few seconds, his eyes not leaving her face. “Car. Penny, where’s your shirt?”

“Ugh,” is all she says before starting to shut the door.

“Penny, wait,” Sheldon whines. “I need to talk to you.”

“Are you bleeding, dying, or about to blow something up?”

“No,” Sheldon says. “You are not a doctor and I highly doubt you’d be capable of fixing anything scientific mistake I’ve made. Mostly because I don’t make mistakes but…”

“Then go away,” Penny hisses. “I’m dirty, I’m tired and I need a glass of wine. If it’s really important, come back after I’ve taken care of all of those things.”

“Okay,” Sheldon agrees more easily than Penny expects, “but I want to add that you should also take care of that garbage smell. I think it’s your hair.”

 

 

When the knocking starts again, Penny is flipping through a magazine on her couch in one of Leonard’s Green Arrow t-shirts, hair still damp and halfway through her second glass of wine. She’s a bit surprised it took him this long to come back. 

“It’s open,” she calls, turning to the page that tells all about how Kristen Stewart might take her dogs to Canada for the weekend. By the time Sheldon comes in, checks the locks, and finds a comfortable place to sit, she’s on the page about Kim Kardashian’s ass. He still hasn’t said a word.

Penny drains her glass and goes to the kitchen for a refill. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, dear God, I hope so,” is Sheldon’s response as he stands up and starts to pace. “I tried what you told me on Saturday. It didn’t work.”

Penny sets the empty glass in the sink and takes a long pull from the bottle. She walks back to the couch and puts her feet up and takes another drink before she responds. “What do you mean it didn’t work? How can it ‘not work’?”

Sheldon takes a deep breath. “I…touched myself…for thirteen minutes Saturday night. I was uncomfortable and unable to maintain interest. On Sunday I researched the subject and watched pornography. I…masturbated…for nearly two hours over the course of the day and did not achieve orgasm. I tried again earlier this evening for a few minutes but either this is just something I don’t understand or something is physically wrong with me.” He pauses to take a breath. “And I went to the doctor two Thursdays ago for a full check up and Dr. Suthsair told me I was in tip top shape. I do not feel like I am in tip top shape, Penny.”

The more he talks, the more he sounds like he might cry. Something about the woman in Penny makes her feel sorry for him and for some reason it kind of makes her horny. ‘But he’s my friend,’ she tells herself. ‘Oh, and Leonard!” She’s a bit proud of herself for thinking of him in this situation. She’s a bit embarrassed and guilty feeling too but she rationalizes that she’s not cheating, she’s not touching, she’s just trying to help her friend though a difficult situation.

“What’s wrong with me?” Sheldon asks with dramatic flair.

“Nothing, sweetie,” she tells him, her inflection meant to be soothing. “Look, I have some experience here. Tell me what you did, I’ll see if I can give you any tips.”

“Tell you? How am I supposed explain that?” Sheldon asks, incredulous. 

“It’s okay, just try.”

He blinks a few times and when he speaks, is hesitant with his words. “I touched my penis. I gripped in what I assume was an acceptable manner. I rubbed it by gently moving my hand up and down on it. I touched the glans. I noticed it was more sensitive there but I also noticed that too much sensation in that area was unpleasant. I briefly fondled my testicles but found nothing of interest there. Ultimately, I failed to orgasm.” Sheldon stops for another breath. “How do I fix it?”

“Wow,” Penny says nonchalantly, her face betraying no emotion. “I can see where you’d have a hard time choosing your words,” she deadpans. “Besides, I don’t know what else to say. I thought maybe you were having a hard time finding your penis or something.” She laughed lightly but Sheldon didn’t catch the joke. “You know,” she said, gesticulating and nodding her head. “Like when you’re having sex and a guy can’t seem to find your…actually never mind.”

“No, what?” Sheldon asks, genuinely concerned. “I want every detail that will help me fix this…problem.”

Penny blushes. “Patience, grasshopper. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Sheldon gives her a dirty look and opens his mouth to protest but apparently decides better of it. It makes her feel bad for him again and that makes her feel like she’s going to do something she might regret. Penny reaches for the bottle of wine on her coffee table. She takes several swallows and the words leave her mouth before the bottom of the bottle hits the table.

“Okay, let’s just get this done and over with. Unzip your pants.”

Sheldon freezes.

“Come on,” Penny coaxes, “whip it out and I’ll show you how to do it and we can go back to pretending we never had this conversation in the first place.”

“Umm…” Sheldon stutters. “What?”

“Would it make you more comfortable if I said this is an experiment? Ya know, for science?” Penny asks.

“Well,” Sheldon responds, feeling a little more in his element. “What kind of experiment? What hypothesis are we testing?”

“The proper way to tickle your pickle. Now pop the jar.”

“You don’t know the definition of ‘hypothesis’. At least I learned something today,” he retorts as he unzips his pants. Sheldon unfastens the button and plays with the zipper for a few seconds, nervously debating what to do. He sighs and pulls his pants and Superman underwear down to his thighs, leaving his flaccid penis exposed to the air. 

He looks at Penny and she’s bent over the coffee table reaching for her wine bottle. He shivers a bit and almost tells her that he’s cold but decides against it. He just watches as she straightens up and downs the remainder of the wine. 

When she looks over at him, Sheldon decides he’s no longer cold. The room actually got hot pretty quick, but maybe, he thinks, it’s the look in her eyes. He’s never seen Penny look quite the way she does right now. Her cheeks are tinted pink from the alcohol but she’s not nearly as intoxicated as he’s seen before. Just the way she looks at him makes his skin burn, especially the almost hungry way she slides her eyes down his body. 

Penny’s gaze drops and lingers. Sheldon knows exactly what she’s looking at but he’s nervous and embarrassed and afraid to look down. He does anyways. His cock is thicker now and he wonders briefly if the blood flow is what’s causing him to lose his ability to think.

He’s still not fully erect, Penny can tell, but from what she can see right now, he’s got to be a solid nine inches and thicker than she’s seen in awhile. Her intention was just to give him a quick hand job and get him off so he’d stop talking about it but the slickness she feels between her legs as she approaches him is quickly making her forget.

She stands directly in front of him and crouches down. She’s eye level with his belly button, his half hard dick inches away, but she looks up into his eyes. “Are you okay with this?” she asks, and her tone couldn’t be softer, more innocent sounding despite the circumstances.

Sheldon nods but remains still and silent. After a short time, Penny shifts to her knees. First she touches his thighs. He flinches but immediately apologizes. She figures she should start with a simple touch and just rubs his thighs, slow and soft, from his groin to his knees but avoids his genitals.

It only takes a minute or two before he’s relaxed into her touch. Penny’s been looking at his cock the whole time, how could she not with it right in front of her? It’s grown to full size and her assumption of its length appears to be accurate. “Sheldon,” she says simply, looking up at him to gauge his approval. He looks down at her, maintains eye contact but offers neither words of encouragement nor protest. Penny takes this as her cue to continue so she does.

Still looking into his eyes, she takes her right hand from his thigh and places it loosely around his girth. He gasps but doesn’t look away. Initially, it’s just light touches, running her fingers down the shaft and her palm back up. She repeats the motion three or four times before grazing the head on her way back down. Sheldon’s jaw drops a bit and he starts breathing through his mouth.

Penny continues this for some time, softly rubbing the shaft with intermittent swipes across the tip. When she’s accumulated a good amount of lubrication she clenches her hand to create a light grip on the shaft of his cock. Now, when she moves her hand up and down, the skin moves with her hand, creating friction on the muscle underneath. She occasionally bumps over the head with her thumb and forefinger. Sheldon makes a sound akin to a kitten’s mewl every time she does. This makes Penny hot. She increases it’s frequency until she’s rubbing her hand all over him: up and down the shaft, one hand over the other, her right palm swirling around the head, increasing in speed until she finds a steady rhythm his body attunes to.

She’s been touching him for about ten minutes when she looks up at his face to gauge his reaction. His face is red, he’s sweating and his head is laid back. She can’t tell if his eyes are open or not. She watches the way his body jerks just slightly every time she rubs her palm over the tip of his penis. He should be ready to come any second, but as the seconds pass and turn into minutes, Sheldon’s fists are clenched, his face is contorted, and Penny realizes he’s not going to get off like this. He’s trying too hard.

“Sheldon,” she says, not stopping what she’s doing with her hands. He doesn’t respond so she removes her hands from him. “Sheldon,” she says again, looking up at his face. He opens his eyes and looks at her, blinking and not seeming to understand what’s happening. After a couple seconds the fog in his eyes seems to clear and she says his name again.

“Penny,” he begs, “please don’t stop.”

“Then look at me,” she tells him, placing her right hand back where he needs it. “Watch me make you come for me.” Her eyes don’t leave his as her hand gently strokes his shaft and she slowly places the head in her mouth. Sheldon groans and his eyes flutter but he keeps his gaze fixed on her face as she takes more of him into her mouth. 

She does things Sheldon never imagined, swirls her tongue around so that it feels like she’s touching all of him, taking him so deep he can feel her uvula and then the back of her throat, but when she sucks him like a melting popsicle, her mouth releasing him inch by inch, her lips touch his most sensitive area and he feels wave after wave of tension being released. He can feel his sperm rocket through his cock and into her mouth and the thought brings on another wave, another spurt of semen, and his whole body feels like jelly.

Penny takes everything he gives her, swallows, and runs her tongue over him a couple more times as it returns to its mostly flaccid state. He jerks at each touch and it only makes her want to do it more, but she knows he must be sensitive, especially since she knows this is his first orgasm.

‘Oh, God,’ Penny thinks to herself. ‘His first orgasm? What the hell have I done?’ Sheldon sits slumped back in the chair as Penny has her internal debate, his hands on either side of the armrests, his pants still down to his knees and his cock lying limp on his thigh. Penny takes one look at him and all she can think to say is “I’m gonna go brush my teeth."


End file.
